Rerum Novarum Discourses on Authority and Infallibility

Shawn McElhinney makes some important distinctions in reply to an e-mail:

.... I for one think any usage of the word "infallible" should be tempered. The reason is the common fallacy that infallibility is the criterion for the truth or the irreformability of a teaching - and is thus the criterion for obedience. Such a position is poisonous and needs to be dispatched whenever it crops its head up because it is the death knell of the very notion of obedience to a superior of any kind....

The Catholic faith is not something to be discovered by theological reasoning. Instead theological reasoning is used to explain what has been handed down to us. Theological reasoning is not infallible; therefore you cannot use it as the basis for accepting a definition without falling into the fallible rendering of infallible teaching infinite regress mode. This is why I have and always will emphasize that what is important is *authority* and not infallibility.

The Church's infallibility stretches much further than most people presume it does. But different channels in which teaching is handed on have different circumstances whereby they can hand on a teaching in a definitive manner. This is why the root and matrix of the entire question must be focused on the authority of the Church to teach in Our Lord's name. Because infallible or not, magisterial teaching still requires at least a religious submission of mind and will. So what should be the question is not as much "is it infallible" as "is it magisterial". And if the latter answer is yes, then it is to be professed. Beyond that point one can seek a further assessment of precise theological qualification of a teaching but only when they are already professing the teaching. Otherwise they make an idol out of "infallibility" and their own private judgment of what is and is not infallible. And that is a malady that is not uncommon today unfortunately....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 09/16/02 09:53:12 PM
Categorized as Classic.